PCMS Contact Centre

After reading Call Centre Helper and Call Centre Focus this week I was pleased to find that Natterbox had released the results of a poll they had taken of customers and their view of customer services. The poll stated that 6 in 10 customers have moved their custom elsewhere because they had receives bad customer services. The poll also revealed that customers still prefer communicating via telephone or email, instead of using social media.  

 The report is very interesting, proving how investing in customer communications whether it is in-house or outsourced can save companies a lot of money further down the line in regards to marketing and sales. It does not matter how large or small your company is, it is less expensive to retain a customer than it is to generate new ones.

 The results of this poll show that although society is becoming more reliant on social media, customers still favour traditional contact methods.  I have found  that it depends on the company you are dealing with, I had an experience recently with a ticket provider, I needed to be advised as to how to collect some tickets I had purchased. I tried calling their customer services numerous  times; each time I got cut off without even speaking to an agent.  In my frustration, I turned to twitter. Within 30 minutes I had a private message apologising for my situation and asking for my contact details, within an hour I had all the information I needed. I think its unfortunate that you have to embarrass a company publicly before receiving good customer services. Needless to say I haven’t been egger to give them my business again!

The results of the poll show companies that customer service is just as important as areas as sales is to their revenue. They should look at their customer services seriously and consider how personal and enjoyable they want to make the experience. We have been blogging for a while at PCMS and have shared many hints and tips as to how to make your customers feel valued.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

At PCMS we continually look at learning new skills and encourage our agents to develop new skills, so most of our agents are cross trained in sales and customer services. Whilst I was running a skills workshop in appointment making this week one of our customer agents suggested I write a blog about some of my tips, I thought this was a great idea so quickly got to work. Thank You Poonam for the inspiration!

Here are a few of my top tips that I give to our telemarketers here in the PCMS contact centre:

1. Think about why you are calling? What do you need to find out from your prospect in order to find out if you can help them?
2.  If you can’t obtain the result you want, what result will you be happy with?
3. Receptionists are our friends, as telemarketers we need to appreciate that they are doing their jobs. Being nasty to or lying to receptionist is not going to help us build relationships with our prospects.
4. Ask for the receptionists/PA’s help, most people want to ‘help’
5. PAs usually know as much about the business as their boss does, tell them your value statement and ask if it is their boss’ department and when you can talk to them.
6. Always confirm who you are talking to, this shows interest and helps you to keep accurate notes.
7. When introducing your company, add a value statement. Why should the prospect listen to you? What will get their attention?
8. Be honest about why you are calling and what you hope to achieve from the call. The prospect will respect your honesty and they will focus on the conversation instead of wondering what you want from them.
9. Silence is your friend, after asking a question wait for your prospect to respond.
10. After you prospect has answered your question, pause, this gives you time to take in what they have said and think of your next question. Also the prospect may fill in the silence and give away to much information.
11. Close with a value statement, so they know why they should call you in the future or to remind them why they have agreed to the meeting.

These are a few of the tips I have learnt over the years that help with calling. The most important tip of all is to always listen more than you talk. As a telemarketer your main objective is to learn about the prospect, the company and their needs.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Many companies can benefit from outsourcing but can be apprehensive, so as it’s Valentines day soon and we are all feeling loved up here are some reasons to love outsourcing:

• Expertise. For many companies  it can be a long process finding just one person with some of the expertise you need, and recruiting can be a time consuming process. When outsourcing you can find a pool of expertise when you need it without paying the full time salary of a professional with their level of expertise. This saves your business a lot of time and money in regards to recruitment, training and managing.
• Experience. Outsourcers tend to have experience in a variety of different industries and projects meaning that they are more flexible and able to adapt their plan to fit in with each customer’s needs and budgets. PCMS have an agent retention average of over 4 and a half years, which is longer than industry standard, meaning our staff have benefitted from being trained on various projects and also will have received feedback on their performance on a monthly basis.
• Control. As a company, outsourcing can mean you have more control, companies can state the budget, the SLAs and the standard they require from their outsourcer and the outsourcer takes responsibility for meeting the set objectives.
• Technology. Outsourcing can provide a company with access to technology that they otherwise could not afford, so companies can use this technology to benefit their business without a large initial investment.
• Dreaming Big. For some companies wishing to expand, outsourcing can be the ideal option, they will benefit in all the areas I have already mentioned making their companies bigger with less risk. Also they may not have the room for an outbound team of 10 people so outsourcing is a fantastic option for them.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Imagine the scene,  it’s Wednesday afternoon and you are on the phones, a customer query comes in and you answer the query honestly and professionally, yet the customer is unhappy and you are not sure why.   Here are some of the things you may have said that might aggravate the matter:

1. “Sorry I cannot help you”
   Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, they may have been passed around and told this all day and they may be losing their patience.  If you think about most the queries you receive in customer services, although you may not be able to resolve the query yourself, I bet you know someone who can help the customer.   If you know someone who can help then give the customer their contact details and explain how this person maybe be able to help them. Better yet, transfer them yourself  and give them your name as a point of contact.  So, instead of saying ‘I can’t help you’ say ‘These are the contact details of the person who can help you and if you need any other help here are my contact details.’ Although you haven’t resolved the customer’s query you have helped them get a step closer to resolving it.
2. “Don’t blame me”
   You need to understand that taking calls in a call centre is a relatively anonymous job, a customer generally isn’t calling to shout at you they are calling to vent about an issue they are having.   If a customer shouts, generally (depending on how you have handled the call) a customer is shouting at the company or the issue. The best action to take when a customer is venting like this is to let them say what they need to say, don’t interrupt.  Once they have finished, clarify what you believe the issue to be, apologise that they are in this situation then explain the actions you will take to resolve the matter.
3. “Sorry but it is company policy to …..”
   Reciting company policy will not help resolve a customer’s issue; this is just another way of saying ‘sorry I can’t help you’.  Instead of focussing on what you can’t do for your customers, focus on what you can do. Present customers with options of what they can do in their situation and then let the customer control how to resolve the issue.
4. “Hold On”
   Just putting a customer on hold can be annoying. Customers respond better to explanations of how you are trying to resolve their query, how long it will take and result they can expect from it. Putting people on hold is the same, explain to the customer why you are putting them on hold and how long they can expect to be on hold or offer a call back at a time convenient to the customer.
5. “I don’t know” These words should not be in a contact centre agent’s vocabulary. If you don’t know the answer to a question, find out the answer from a team leader or handbook or find out where the customer can find the answer. This saves the customer a lot of time and guess work on their behalf, they will be grateful for the help.

Remember, you can always help a customer in some way, you may not resolve their issue but you can put them on the path to a resolution. Don’t take calls personally remember that the customer is not angry at you but at the situation, I know it’s hard but try not to get emotional!

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist